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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (00:05)
Welcome to The Marketing B-Sides I'm your host Tom Hootman I'm also the CEO and Founder of Mixtape Digital but this isn't about that This is a podcast where every single last person on the world's a marketer and none of us pretend to have anything remotely figured out as I love to say I'm the today's guess is pretty cool. So in this business My business our business a lot of our businesses. I run an agency
run agencies for a while. In agency land, as they call it, it's really, really tough to differentiate yourself. And people talk a lot about blue ocean, red ocean, where are going to plant our flag on what makes us different? And it's really, really, really easy in agency land to get caught up in the business of yes, no matter what and just
trying to win as many clients as possible and figuring out on the back end. It's a temptation I think a lot of people struggle with, myself included from time to time. And it's something that today's guest has a unique stance that I, to say I admire the stance is an understatement. Just an incredible human being, honestly. And you're about to meet Renia
Realign Consulting is her company. And Realign Consulting is an agency, yes, is also a consulting firm, is fractional CMOs. They do things very differently than other agencies. And I'll shut up in a minute and I'll let Renia kind of take it from there and tell you more about it. But.
What really impresses me more than anything else about this conversation is, number one, I've met with Renia a few times and it's impossible not to be impressed and to be motivated and to come out of the conversation with a positive frame of mind about agencies and people doing great work in our industry and being honest and transparent and upfront about what is a good client and what isn't a good fit for them.
but more than anything else, number one, she's more organized than I'm ever going to be. And for those of you who watch this on YouTube, you can see behind her, there's a calendar that she talks about a bit. That's incredible how organized she is. She's also an Eagles fan, go birds. And they have a process that they stick to for all the clients that want to work with them. And I
I used to have a saying, we used to talk a lot about every time we would kind of create a process or have a benchmark, we won't work with anyone unless they fit this parameter. It felt like the next prospect in broke those rules and puts you back in a position of being like, hey, okay, we'll make an exception this time because you kind of talk yourself into what if we did really well here in this group. And I like that. I like the idea there.
there are agencies saying, saying, no, I'm sorry, we're not a fit. And not just no, we're not a fit because of budget, which I think is the number one reason or niche that agencies do say, hey, sorry, you seem great, but you're not a perfect fit for us. But the way she goes about ensuring alignment from day one and the investment that clients make in ensuring that they get her team can can put forth the best results possible is beyond impressive.
I love this conversation and I'm excited for you to hear it. So I hope you enjoy the conversation half as much as I did. Really insightful.
wonderful magnetic personality. Like, subscribe, tell your friends about it. If you want to be a guest, let me know. You know somebody who wants to be a guest, let me know. I'm always open to it. And getting guests is a hard thing to do because I want to keep the guests interesting and I don't just want to talk to people in my circle of trust. So I like talking to strangers. I mean, who doesn't like talking to strangers?
Anyway, enjoy this episode. Thanks so much.
Tom Hootman (03:47)
So I appreciate you making time. you and I have caught up a few times And you're the busiest woman in show business. I think the first meeting.
you grabbed my Calendly and it was like eight weeks out and I was like, ⁓ goodness. This, this is a.
Renia (03:58)
I mean,
I don't want it to be that way. In full disclosure, like I look at my calendar and I look that I know exactly what I'm doing for the next like six weeks and I'm a little sad.
Tom Hootman (04:11)
How far ahead do you look?
Renia (04:13)
So I plan blocks for the quarter, every quarter. And then Stephanie, my project manager, is usually booking me six weeks out. Like, that's where we're at right now, unfortunately.
Tom Hootman (04:13)
try
I say fortunately, you're so organized. That's incredible, honestly.
Renia (04:27)
We are very
organized. I have color coding everywhere on my calendar. Tom, if I showed you my calendar, you would probably vomit. It's like...
I tell people tongue and she- sorry, go ahead.
Tom Hootman (04:36)
I had a VP of sales, shout
out Kayla Kurtz, who was on this podcast. She had two notepads. She had a small notepad for the day and a bigger notepad for ongoing, and she had four or five different colors. And she would carry them around with her. And it was easy to poke fun at. She was the most organized person. She never forgot anything. And she was always the first to follow up. And it was like, I need to get.
two notepads and some highlighters.
Renia (05:03)
Yeah, I tell people tongue in cheek that like my Venus is in Virgo, so organization is my love language. But the truth is, I read the four hour workweek as people did back in the era that I started my company. And something Tim Ferriss said in that book really got to me, which is like, if you are busy, it's because you have no priorities. And so I started like the calendars behind me.
The pink stickies start the year. That's time off. And that goes up before anything else. And then we plan around that. then speaking and strategic planning retreats go up next. And then everything else has to fit around that. So part of why my calendar is booked out as far as it is is I will only do a certain number of meetings every week because I can't lead my company.
and do what I need to do for my staff if I spend 10 hours a day in meetings. So we have a cap on how many meetings I will do every week. I'm also an extreme introvert, so meetings take day. So like, we have a cap on how many I will do every week, and that pushes things out.
Tom Hootman (06:03)
you
I've heard of that before, about the yearly calendar, starting with time off, vacations. I honestly, I'm jealous of the calendar behind you. I really am, because it's a smart way to plan things. And then also, I want to say that you're a keynote speaker,
Renia (06:17)
you
Tom Hootman (06:26)
You speak all the time, but you're an introvert in my opinion. I've found that people who are introverts tend to be.
the strongest communicators. think that maybe it's the introversion slash empaths where you you're considerate and you listen. And I've worked with a lot of salespeople in a lot of different industries. Outside sales, especially we talked about that a minute ago, where there's the attitude of as long as I'm talking, they can't say no. And they just go and go and go and go
Renia (06:52)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (06:55)
Interesting. did it you were an assistant VP in banking, which is a natural segue into the land you're in now total sarcasm. So you you've been this is you said you're coming up on 20 years since you found your company. ⁓ For the uninitiated, can you give us the snapshot of what Realign does?
Renia (07:04)
You
Yes, next year will be 20 years.
Yeah, I mean, I like to say we build bridges and clean up messes. But I think the official answer is that we are a marketing and brand partner and a strategy firm partner. All of our engagements start with strategic planning, which is crazy for a marketing company in some ways. But that comes from my banking background, where I really understood that
most companies don't understand their finances. And so you can't really understand what you need to do for marketing if you don't understand how you're making money, where you make the most money and back into it from there. So that's, mean, we didn't start that way. We started in 08, which is a great time to start a business.
Tom Hootman (08:05)
Good timing.
Renia (08:05)
Anybody
who's old enough to remember that, thinking that we were, I thought that I was going to do essentially what I did in banking in the private sector, right? Like we talked a little bit ago before we started recording about consultants. I thought I was going to be a consultant to help people with like their business plan and how to prepare for a loan and you know, all the stuff I was doing in banking. And if you remember 08, Facebook pages were newly a thing.
And I had a Facebook page that this is how old this was. OK, how close to the beginning. My slug on my original Facebook page was slash small business coach.
Tom Hootman (08:42)
That's a nice get.
Renia (08:43)
And it was back in those glory days where like you could post something and someone would see it immediately. Y'all Facebook used to end. I said that to my kids recently and they were like, it did what? Like it would just end and you'd have to wait, til new stuff.
Tom Hootman (08:54)
Use the end.
No, yeah, that's how you were like, I'm man, I've been on this way too much. I've been on this at least an hour because it's over. There's no updates.
Renia (09:02)
Yeah. So people started asking us, how did you do that? How did you like, how did you get clients from there? How did you, how are you using this Facebook thing? Right. And I got an engagement that I probably shouldn't have had from where I was to help a multinational franchise figure out how to do this social media thing. And that kind of changed the trajectory of the business pretty quickly.
And that, you know, so we sort of accidentally became a marketing company. Tom, I have a degree in Iranian Politics And I didn't intend to be a banker. I certainly did not intend to be a marketer. It's just kind of right place, right time and a skill set that I didn't know was right that turned out to be very right for that particular time.
Tom Hootman (09:46)
I was going to mention this and then you brought it up. think what drew me to what I love about this industry is that while it's less nascent than it was, I started as a director of new business in 2011. And so at that time, nobody on the team, there were no marketing degrees to be had. Everyone on the team, mean, our president was a philosophy major.
phenomenal manager, right, could connect with people. had English majors. My best sales rep was an English teacher who did student teaching and was like, I don't really want to do this and said, hey, they're doing this. She literally found the job on Craigslist back when you could post jobs on Craigslist and people actually read them. So everyone had this different background. And then we kind of pivoted into as we, as we scaled and as the years went on, the ideal candidate was someone with a mathematics background who was ⁓
Renia (10:23)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (10:35)
had that functional capability with data. And then you realize over time the team was skewing into crazy smart, but also struggled with client communication. So then we tried to skew it the other way. it's different because now, I mean, two of our entry level, wonderful entry level folks are graduates from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with marketing degrees. And I think that it's still an industry that's so vast, they can teach you a little bit about everything, but until you actually get into an agency or until you get an in-house role,
and realize just how different it is. It's not like an, you have to, it's like being a plumber. The best way to do it is to apprentice under someone for years because you just see all the random shit that happens and you learn how to do the right thing by seeing how things go wrong and how to fix them or bumping into a wall and learning there's a wall here. Don't go in this direction again, which is fascinating to me. Is there an element from your, I'll say corporate, your banking background that you,
started on this angle of like consulting with SMBs, helping them solve the finance side. Is there an element of that that even today, you still see clients desperately lacking from those first days?
Renia (11:40)
Yeah,
I think this is kind of esoteric, but I think SMBs in particular don't understand bank niches. So they don't understand their finances and they don't also don't understand that like when one bank tells them no, it may be because it's the wrong niche bank. And so they need to go ask again somewhere else. I do really miss the resourcing. Like I remember telling my
ex-husband and this may be part of why he's my ex-husband, right? When I first started my company that I'd be able to replicate my banking salary in 90 days. It took seven years and the part of that is because like if you've never been in small business, which I hadn't at that point, you don't understand the difference in resourcing. It's actually why I don't usually hire people.
with marketing degrees or MBAs in particular is they're taught how to lead and how to run marketing at big companies with lots of resources. And I think the same thing happens to small business, right? It's like they read the books about how to do the things that are profiling big companies. And so they try to replicate those things and that's not necessarily gonna work for them if they don't have the scaling resources.
Tom Hootman (12:56)
I'm glad you told me seven years, because that gives me hope. I'm kidding.
Renia (13:01)
Maybe don't
tell anyone that or nobody will start a business, right?
Tom Hootman (13:05)
I didn't know when I
started business. Well, it's true. Until you start a business, you really just have to dive in and learn. I think that something I tell people is that you have to be a student. You have to be comfortable not knowing any answers. It humbles you. And I made a few videos when I first started, and I actually kind of peeled it back a bit because I was just kind of being...
Whimsical and off the cuff and I had a couple people message me and they're like, like don't worry. You're gonna be great I'm like, I know everything's great. I'm just kind of cracking a joke about I Don't know how taxes work. So why not start a business because it's gonna force me to learn how taxes work It's the adage of with client pitches or client deadlines like give us a deadline Once we have a deadline we work backwards and the work starts, Like we work faster and better if you tell us no rush. goodness, that's
it's going to meander about and it'll the weeds are going to grow on it. So like knowing that, okay, let's do this. We're doing this. And stepping out into the into the gray area forced me to learn, okay, PNL cash flow, when can I pay myself? How do I pay myself? Like, my poor accountant, Kim, I'm always like, Kim, how do I do this? And she's like, that's a great question. And so she's even educational and sit down with her. And that's where I learned like, she's like 90 % of her clients.
are still on this, like a lot of them run their end of month and then they'll take their draw based on like how much it's left, like and how little they get. She's like, some folks are literally going day to day. And I think that is particularly for SMBs who are local. When I think of restaurants and I think of retail, it is month to month, week to week, you trial by fire, right? Like having to learn it, let alone when it starts to scale and grow, it can be tough.
Renia (14:48)
For sure. And I do want to say, though, like, this was one of the biggest lessons I learned in business was, like, I always put that label on, this is a local electrician or a local restaurant or whatever. They don't know. But somehow this company that's gotten to a hundred million dollars, also a small business, right, is they know now. They don't know either.
In fact, sometimes they know less because it's easier to hide ⁓ from the numbers at that point.
Tom Hootman (15:13)
Yeah.
Or they can scale fast enough to delegate it away. And that's where I think you run into founders who get a company to a point where they have an amazing team and they're good. That's what make them a good founder, right? Surround yourself with smart people and get out of the way. But they also, if left to their own devices, wouldn't have the first inkling of, have no idea what's going on really. Like they lean on that team to be responsive to them.
You remind me of like when it dawned on me a few years ago that I was older than my mom was when I moved out of the house and was like, I'm just gonna move to Bloomington. And I thought then she was old and had everything figured out. And I was like, goodness, no, we're all children. No one has anything figured out, do they?
Renia (15:55)
I was just gonna say like the dirty little secret that I feel like none of us talk about because we have survivorship bias is I've seen as many companies fail because they grew too fast as fail because they didn't grow fast enough. Scaling can screw you. And in ways that you just cannot get your feet back underneath you.
And that's part of why we do things the way that we do is like, what is the point of working that hard for everything to just fall apart?
Tom Hootman (16:20)
Well, it's something that blew me away and impressed the hell out of me when you and I first started talking was the way you do things. Like you are intentionally selective, your process of doing consultation, the requirements, not that you have like this, might, knowing you it's probably on the other wall, but like this list of requirements that you hold each prospective client to in this business.
It's so easy to get in the trap of yes, yes, yes, we can make it work. We can change them, right? Like, don't worry, I'll fix them, right? Like that you say yes and you bite off more than you can chew. And what I've learned from moving very quickly from the business of yes into the business of what's the right fit for us is that it grinds up the team around you. It causes undue stress. And in a lot of ways it's even
Having one conversation with a client and being open and honest upfront about what you really can do versus just smiling and crossing your fingers behind your back can help make everyone's life easier. How did you land on the selectiveness of here's who we'll work with and how do you say no if there's something that comes along and you're like.
Renia (17:26)
Pain, pain,
pain, pain. Isn't that how we always learn?
Tom Hootman (17:30)
Well, I maybe I'm a glutton. I keep hitting myself in the hand with a hammer, but I'll learn someday. But you're right. Like.
Renia (17:36)
We have three
bright lines, though, Tom. I want to say, we don't have a scorecard. Some of my companies have a complicated go-no-go scorecard for choosing clients. We have three bright lines. That's it. Line one is, my team and I have to believe in what they do. That is actually a disqualifier a lot of the time. And I think.
really something that a lot of small companies, especially marketers, should think more about. And this is where I can like get on my soapbox is like, your job as a marketer is to expand their reach. If you don't believe in what they do, what the hell are we doing? Right. So that's our first bright line is like, we have to believe in what they do.
Tom Hootman (18:17)
No, you're right.
Renia (18:21)
And then second, we have to believe in why they do it and how they do it. Meaning we have to believe in their team and the way they're doing the work. Because I don't want to help grow them if I think that they are treating people like crap or only in it for the acquisition or like making the world generally a suckier place to be. I'm just not interested.
And then third, and this is maybe the one that was the hardest for me to come to, but third is they have to be able to afford to pay for us for six months, because all of our retainers are a minimum of six months, without making a dollar and be OK. That gives us space in the first retainer, the first round of our relationship to
do all of the foundational shit that usually doesn't get done because your client is wanting you to run at results in the first 30 days. And so you don't have time to lay the bricks. We are bricklayers. I, so now that's a privilege of the way we've built our business, right? I don't work with startups for that reason. They need to be able to afford that runway time.
That's just the way I'm built. But that's come through pain. When I have, I don't like to do things backwards and things that don't matter. So like we don't work with big corporate clients because of pain, because I have put years of my life into building something a couple of times that gets trashed or never sees the light of day. And that just seems like a big giant waste of my life energy. So that's where we landed.
But like, that's basically the three lines they have to pass. That's it.
Tom Hootman (20:02)
The third line, they have to pay for you for six months and not make a dollar off of it. Be able to, not have to, you're right. Poor vernacular on my part. They have to be able to. Do you ever have clients, mean, you have, that's a conversation with them up front, obviously as part of this consultation. Do you have a lot of clients who will be like, no, yeah, we can do that. And then.
Renia (20:08)
Be able to, yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (20:25)
Once the ink is dry, they tear the mask off and they're like, by the way, we need to move faster.
Renia (20:29)
No, not really. So we haven't had an in engagement. So we've been working with a client for a couple of years, and they're like, now we want to run 150 miles an hour. And that is one of the ways that engagements will end for us, because that's just not a thing that we do. We're like, go forth and conquer, but we're going to need to find you somebody else to do that with.
We, because we start with strategic planning now, so this is a thing that used to happen back in the old days, but because we start with these two day strategy retreats now, everything comes out. Like everything comes out. All the, our clients get in a room with me and sometimes with Stephanie, depending on the size of the team. And they, we have it out about these things. So there's a really high level of trust and
all of their expectations come out by the end of that.
Tom Hootman (21:18)
Is that always on site or do you do that remote? How do you do that? The two day.
Renia (21:22)
So we actually insist that they get offsite from their location. So we've been everywhere from like a fancy Airbnb in Rehoba Beach, Delaware, which I didn't know was a place, in the middle of a nor'easter last year with an executive team to like, you know, fancy hotel ballrooms and everything in between. We get them offsite out of their day to day. And many of them, they have never done anything like that.
Tom Hootman (21:47)
I love it because I've always been a big proponent of getting in front of your clients. I love client visits. I love pitching in person, but I really love client visits because in a one hour call, two hour, even a two hour call or a three hour meeting, like it's what happens around the meeting that really impacts the relationship and the alignment that moves us forward, that tends to propel us. When you meet someone as another human in a room.
The work gets done faster. Yes, that's great. You can collaborate faster, but I think it's more than that. It's the conversations around that that come up the, by the ways that we've doubled the size of clients because someone in the room is like, by the way, has anyone ever mentioned we do this? And you're like, well, yeah, we can help with that. That would never have come up had we not been in a room together after the meeting, right? Before we all went for drinks and dinner or whatever. do think that what I love about that idea is that you
you it's a what do we call it at my last agency a chem session right like it's the chemistry you're checking the chemistry they're vetting you just as much as you're vetting them at that point is this prior to them to you signing an agreement this two-day or is this the kickoff of the engagement like is there
Is this the last step in vetting, like part of your process of deciding whether or not to work together or is this, okay, we're going to do this. We've signed now let's do the two days.
Renia (23:06)
Yeah, so I want to say like the first of all that this evolved. So we used to have two pieces of the business, right? We had these marketing retainers and we had these strategic planning retreats that we did every year and they were just kind of separate pieces of the business. In 2022, we started to really pull those two pieces together because I started seeing the same pattern and like all the red flags would come out in advance to deal with.
when we had this happen first. What I say about the strategy retreats is like, are in a ⁓ privileged position of almost all of our clients today are referred to us by other clients. It's very, and that's been built over time because like we don't fail. And most of our clients have worked with other marketing companies before they come to us.
And they come to us because they've tried a lot of different things and it has not worked. So we are often like they're at the point of exasperation. And somebody that what we do is already worked for has told them that this works. And they're like, whatever you say, I will do it, right? Because we are tired of this not working. That's not how things always were. And the strategy retreats are a sell. Like most people are like, you want to.
I want a marketing retrainer and you want to do what? Right. and they're a resource intensive thing for that company to do, especially smaller businesses that are not used to doing retreats like this all the time. But if they're in for that, they're in for the ride. Everything after that's going to be easy.
Tom Hootman (24:41)
Yeah, that's, yeah.
I think it's great. Again, it takes having a calendar that's mapped out on your wall behind you, but it's great. ⁓
Renia (24:48)
We
also do just, I want to say transparently from like a mechanics position. So depending on that, we scale the cost of those based. We have a sliding scale based on the company size and the size of the team. but they start at $15,000, right? And then they slide up from there, depending on the company size and the size of the team. And we do, you know, a couple dozen of those every 18 months or so.
That's a nice little chunk of revenue that is just there in these one-off hits that makes decisions on the longer term things easier to handle.
Tom Hootman (25:24)
Have you ever, do you still fight ever the temptation to like, what if I scaled this and 10 X that and grew my team? Or have you learned your lesson?
Renia (25:33)
Bye!
Occasionally, think, shout out to my husband, Craig. He does not understand why we don't do more scaling. I have not a lot of heart for the scaling of the business. If I had a partner who was really into the people management of scaling the internal team, I think I might be interested in it. I am...
a lot better at the conceptual side of things. Like I'm better at the writing and the speaking and the selling and the, like, I don't have a lot of the right skill set for the building the internal team that I would want to have to do that. I have 10 people on my team right now and that is about my limits.
Tom Hootman (26:18)
10 is a good limit. I think 10 is to get over 10
and you're like, okay, who's going to help me with this at this point? Cause it gets hard admittedly. I want to shift gears a bit because it wouldn't be a podcast if we didn't talk about AI. well, yeah, I want it. Cause I know you have multiple, get your tallest soap box out. And it's interesting because every week we all get this question every day. I got this question this morning.
Renia (26:29)
All right, here we go. Now you're really gonna get me on my soapbox.
Tom Hootman (26:43)
in a discovery call, a second call after discovery call about the details of how we layer in AI in our day to day and how do we leverage AI? It's a softball question everyone tosses around that feels like the, to me, I'm always like, how do I, you want to answer it as like honestly and like with teeth as much as possible, but at the same time,
As I like to say, it's a baseball term. You're at the mercy of your dumbest competitor when it comes to signing free agents. There's always gonna be someone out there with deeper pockets who just wants to sign somebody. And there's this allure, this competitive draw to like what the Joneses are doing about turn, to turn into an AI hustle bro. I'm never gonna do that, but it's.
Renia (27:12)
there.
Tom Hootman (27:26)
I will admit I nose around to see like what's out there. What aren't we doing? What's our approach? How are we continuously refining our approach to AI? There's this efficiency trap where AI lets us do things faster, but not necessarily better, right? Do you think we're losing the ability to have a unique opinion because we're relying on the average of what a model tells us and
how do you leverage AI realistically for clients without just painting a bubblegum forest and a candy cane highway that you really don't use?
Renia (27:58)
Yeah, I can tell you what I answered that question with. That's probably a good start. When clients or potential clients ask me that question, I answer back with a question, why are you asking that? Because I want to know, if they're asking that question because they think they need to use the word AI, we got to unpack, unpack what is the point of this. And again, this is a lesson I learned through pain. I was there at the very beginning of marketers using social media.
Tom Hootman (28:01)
Yeah, it'll great.
Renia (28:24)
And I was one of those marketers that was like, because it's Facebook back in the day, y'all Instagram didn't exist yet. Tiktok didn't exist yet. I'm old. I'm 42 and it makes me a dinosaur in this industry. Right. But we.
Tom Hootman (28:38)
Don't say
that. Don't say that.
Renia (28:39)
But I was the 20 something asshole telling everyone they had to get on social media or their business was going to die. It wasn't true then, it isn't true now. So what I mostly want people to do is like slow the hell down. If the reason we're talking about AI is just because we think we have to use the word AI, we're in trouble already. What is the benefit that it can give to you?
What's the gap that it can fill? And I am really passionate about the less you know about a subject or an area, the less you should use AI. Because it's much more hazardous if you don't know when it's wrong or doing weird things or, you know, overconfident. So I want first the like, what do we need to, what's the gap we're trying to fill?
or what's the efficiency we're trying to make. And then I want to ask a second question of like, have you tried automation? Because that's the thing that's been around for a real long time that most companies are not using very well, that we have tried and true paths for that are a lot less hazardous. And then if we get past those two, then it's time for like, okay, now let's talk about how we use AI here. And we use it a lot. I especially love it for reporting internally.
because what we use to have to write, right? I can turn a five-hour writing session into a one-hour with AI, but we also have really hard lines about where we won't use it. And I think what most marketers and SMBs in particular should be asking themselves right now is not like, how do we use AI, but like, how do we make the people change that we need to make?
so that AI is a tool that makes people better at their work, that makes them more efficient at their work, that makes them more valuable to the company, not how do we use AI just because it's the buzzword of the moment. And there's my TED Talk. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Tom Hootman (30:35)
I I mean it's funny
because I have said to the team and this is true I said the second person to say AI in a pitch loses right you have to mention it first or you look reactive now it doesn't mean you have to have an answer and you have to have some whizbang flashy thing you want to unveil but you have to acknowledge it first because if the client or the prospect brings it up first it only looks like we're responding to their question
Renia (30:46)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (31:02)
And it diminishes a bit of the, we had to bring it up. It brings up that we had to bring it up to them. You didn't. It's, it was going to come up anyway, but it's this. I it's interesting that why are you asking that is, is correct. It's like slow the hell down is another thing you said, slow the hell down. And why are you asking that? All right. Is it, is it because I think the answer truly is you're, are you asking it because you feel like you have to ask that question because your C suite wants to know.
Renia (31:17)
You
Tom Hootman (31:27)
What are they doing with AI? And does your C-suite do anything with AI? They do not. are they in the buzzword trap? I think the buzzword trap is real. Because I also think, my soapbox, there are a ton of amazing tools and uses that in tandem with the human can churn out really incredible work much more quickly and efficiently. However, you cannot give it too much, it's dangerous. Garbage in, garbage out.
Renia (31:42)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (31:54)
And I know of people who've created an echo chamber with their AI, their GPT conversations where like, it's feeding, yes, Tom, you're right. That's a great call out. No, I don't know that I'm right, GPT. Like you need to challenge me.
Renia (32:07)
We actually
have an explicit rule in our company that no one is allowed to use the God Mode command. I am not having this level of overconfidence.
Tom Hootman (32:18)
You can say fuck Sam Altman in the podcast.
Really? Tell me why.
Renia (32:35)
The combination of deep thinking from the AI and confidence is the most dangerous. if you can't unpack this thing on your own, and we are needing to go to god mode, we're at very high hazard. Now, this is subject to change as these tools get better and better. They're faster and But right now, it's too high a hazard.
and the overconfidence is really a problem for marketers. Like we like to have the answers.
Tom Hootman (33:09)
Yep.
We feel like we failed if we don't have the answers. mean, that's, and the reason is because some clients think you have failed if you don't have the answers, like you're all-knowing or omnipotent. And it's like, no, like we're figuring it out.
Renia (33:19)
Well, and
yeah, and quality is so much more important now. I think that's one of the things that we're forgetting is like, AI can be a mediocre marketer today. Like if we can't get to high quality, high results, we're all replaced with robots. So like we use, we use Claude every day when we are developing websites, for example, like we have.
projects set up in Claude with all kinds of rules and all kinds of artifacts and all kinds of things. So our whole team can work in those projects together. And we're like, it feels like plugging into the hive mind. And it's super cool, right? But we won't put out public facing content that's been AI generated. Like that's a red line because I think Google's going to smack everybody for this as soon as they can figure out how. And I lived through 2012 and Panda and Penguin.
Fuzzy apocalypses. I'm not living that again.
Tom Hootman (34:12)
It's, I mean, it's interesting. I couldn't agree more because I've always said you're so much more eloquent. I would never copy paste something, but I've also, the way AI has been great for me personally, Mixtape wouldn't exist without it because I'm an introvert, right? And the last thing I'm always, I would have never, I didn't have anyone I really fully trusted that was either not going to smash my idea of starting an agency to bits and
or was going to say like, hell yeah, go do it. And then I get out there and like straight down and having that model to run ideas by and craft some of the early foundations, even helping with the site and helping the model of like what an engagement looks like was like a safe space for me of like being able to have that conversation and get some feedback that was, decent.
But I had you like, could very easily see how people are like, kind of fooled into or lulled into a sense of absolute trust, which is a very, very bad place to be. I think that it's a, it's a tool. It's not something you should ever blanket take at the base level of what it's telling you. You have to look at it through a clear, ⁓ clear lens. And unfortunately I see people all the time. Well, you see it all the time. You see LinkedIn posts, for example, that are very clearly copy pasted in.
I hate coming up with ideas for LinkedIn. I love telling my, telling GPT to come up with 20 really awful, shitty ass ideas for LinkedIn. Cause there's, there's something in there that I can take and write my own LinkedIn post and like come up with an idea off of, I need that starter. And that was RFPs were always like that. You would stare at a blank canvas and be like, I got to write.
Why am I, how am I this old and I'm writing term papers, right? It's a term paper. And to start it was always the hardest part. Now you can get it started and be like, ⁓ shit, this is fucking garbage. But I can work with garbage, right? I can hone garbage and I can pull all the wiring out and I can fix something that's broken more easily than I can build something from scratch.
Renia (36:10)
100 % agree with you for where you and I are in our career. Where I get nervous about those use cases is for earlier career people. And I say that because I use Claude all the time to generate headlines. Please generate 7,000 variations of this headline. And then I'm going to take some of these ideas and create something that actually works. And it gets what used to be a really painful process done in
15, 20 minutes, what used to take me a couple hours sometimes, depending on the piece. And I should also say full disclosure, like I identify as a writer above anything else. So my marketing hat is always with the writer's hat on. But the thing about that is I learned how to write headlines by early on in my career as a marketer writing hundreds
upon hundreds, maybe thousands of lines of metadata in a spreadsheet. Title tags, meta tags, alt text, learning how to write those things with keywords in a spreadsheet, because y'all, used to have to write all that by scratch. So I can do that. Those mechanics are there. Those muscles are there. I don't know how someone today learns how to do that.
Tom Hootman (37:09)
Thanks.
Thanks.
Renia (37:26)
if they don't have to write hundreds of lines of metadata, you know?
Tom Hootman (37:30)
I had an episode with, a producer for Bravo MTV Networks and she was a producer for Real Housewives. And we were on a panel together at ⁓ Media School Day at Indiana University and she talked about.
the hundreds if not thousands of hours of footage for reality television that they would pull in and how in the in before AI, they literally got your start as a production assistant like a PA. And you had the shittiest job in the world because you had to watch and go through reams and reels and reels of footage. Or they'd be like, find that scene where someone did the thing. And they would have to go find it. It's like a scavenger hunt. And now you can you can type in
a prompt and find it immediately. We talked a bit about that, about how that is what creates the eye for great production. the same concern about entry level people not getting the experience or developing that eye for it because it's almost too easy to find the thing you really want versus the journey of looking for what you want and finding something better along the
Renia (38:32)
Yeah.
I think we need to guard our skill sets. Sometimes I feel like I have these conversations and I sound anti-AI. I am not that person. We use it every day. We use it a lot in a lot of different contexts. I'm very happy to have it. It makes lots of things much more affordable. That said, we need to know what are your core strengths. I like that strengths finder analogy of that is like a
natural talent that has been practiced over time becomes a strength. If you don't practice, you don't get the strength. And I guard against those pretty closely with my AI tools. So like, I don't go to AI first when I'm thinking about strategy, when I'm trying to solve a hard problem. I intentionally go for a walk or go for a run and like sit with the problem.
and come up with my own ideas before I go to AI. And I do the same thing when I write because those are skill sets that are key to what I want to do in the world. And I need to keep them sharp. And they dull if you go too fast to a tool to do it for you.
Tom Hootman (39:39)
My wife and I go try to go for a walk almost every day after
what I enjoy about it is the ability to spend time with her and catch up. But there are some days where I'm like, I'm not, you're not gonna get me, because I'm still spinning. I need to really think through a few things and it's the greatest way to like process and slow yourself down and really think deeply about the day.
It helps me think through the problem because it's me and me for two hours figuring out the problem together. It's not me and GPT saying, no, please no dashes. No, that's not what I meant. Please don't do that. Please tell me, please stop telling me I'm right. Things of that nature. So I love it. You're not anti AI at all. I think it's
I think it's a pragmatic approach to AI and it's realistic because I think it's tempting to be overly pro-AI in our industry today.
Renia (40:26)
I got in a lot of trouble, Tom, a couple of weeks ago because I gave a, for what, for me was one of the biggest speeches of my career out in San Diego. And the person who introduced me introduces me as an AI expert. And I was like, wait a minute, where did that, when did that happen? Right. And I, so the first thing I say before I even dive into what I had planned was like, if you take nothing else from this talk, I would like you to take this.
If anyone calls themselves an AI expert and does not work for one of four companies, I would like you to be very skeptical of everything else that comes out of their mouth. That's the most important thing from this talk today. And that's kind of where I'm at is like, uh, I know a lot more about AI than I think the average person does today. And so, you know, but if you're a true expert on this, you work at Google or. Anthropic.
or Open AI, that's about it. Maybe you work for Elon. that's where all the experts are. None of the rest of us are there yet because we are less than 2000 days old on this.
Tom Hootman (41:34)
And I think that in our industry, it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that everyone's using it to some extent. And I'll tell you, I have a multiple like the group texts, like little pockets of people that I've known for my entire life. And the vast majority of people are like, I'm not using that. Because they're just not in a field where they use it every day or need to use it every day. Or if they use it, they use it to like, give me a recipe for that thing again.
Right. It's, it's really easy in our field to think that everyone's using it for everything every day and everyone's it's, it's a key element of everyone's job. And it's not, I mean, it's, I had a ⁓ very good friend of mine who was asking me just yesterday, which of the Gemini, Claude, GPT, he should start with. I'm going to, he was like, wanted to like really get into it a bit and start to toy around with it. And it was like, honestly, it was refreshing because it was, you just get so used to like, how is your agency using AI to drive stronger results for us? And you're like,
Why is every question so heavy, right? To someone being like, hey, which one do I use? How are you going to use it? I don't know, I'm just toying around. Someone said Claude. Claude's good, but what about GPT? That was a fun conversation to have because it feels like everyone is like, no, how are you using it to defeat your enemies? And it's like, stop. It's not that. It's toy. Everyone plays at the toy. We all get time with the toy. Settle down.
Renia (42:49)
Yeah, think we, think, who was it? I think it was Scott Galloway on his podcast the other day was talking about that like it's almost impossible to get funding right now if you're not an AI startup, like nothing else is getting funded, right? So I think people are just conditioned in our world that they have to use these words. And we've been here before.
Like we get to choose. And I was on the team. I want to say, like, I'm preaching because I made this mistake. I was a marketer who did all kinds of shitty marketing things in the early days of social media and SEO and whatever that have been terrible. We now know we're terrible things for humans. And I get to choose to do that differently this time. And
I'm not anti-AI. I want to use it. want to whatever. But like, I am not in for the run fast and break things way of working anymore. That has burned too much of what I love about the world down. We are doing this intentionally now. And that's just, that's the hill I'm willing to die on. Like if we go out of business because of it, fine. But we've had our best two years ever the last two years. So, you know.
Tom Hootman (44:00)
It's a because you because you believe in it. You're not trying to sell something you go back to the three bright lines, right you you You realize you're you're looking in a mirror and saying those same three bright lines to what you do every day about your own company Right like that is your you started by measuring yourself to that. Do I believe and have a passion for this? Yes I'm never gonna let that go right your three bright lines is obviously more organized We touched on this more organized and more eloquent than what I say like my
thing I've said to the team, I don't want to work with dicks. I don't want people who are jerks. And so many years when you're in an agency that's growing so fast and scaling and has multiple layers, which I'm not saying it's actually great. I miss those layers because those were people that would help me. But at the same time, I've worked for, held onto clients and, and smiled and nodded and took what they dished me out of fear of losing them.
And all I, and I knew how it was going to end and you knew it was going to end and they still got to beat you up on the way out. And I was like, I don't want to do that anymore. That was like one of the core things. I, we, fired my first client two and a half weeks into them being with us. And then I had an existential crisis that night right in the other room. And I thought, cause I've, I've worked with, and I've heard of you, who these horror stories of business owners who were just like screaming at people and mean. And I just was like, this isn't going to work. Like,
this isn't the behavior that we started Mixtape Digital to work with. No offense. I also think that this is, I remember telling them, because the CEO hung up on the call. And I was like, no offense, that's nature, that's not nurture. if, even if she comes back and apologizes, we're done. Like I can't. And the next day I got online, I thought that night, like, holy shit, am I just gonna be the guy who just fires everybody? Client number one.
17 days in and the team was like, thank you. We knew how that was going to end. That wasn't going down the right path. And it's part of it's like trusting your gut. And for so many years, you're right. In the early days, you just want to grow despite what your gut is screaming at you. And like, you just have to listen. If you just listen to it, you'd be happier in the long run anyway.
Renia (45:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think to be fair to people, Tom, I feel you on that. That took tremendous courage. I don't know if I could have done that 17 days in. I will say I've fired two clients for bad behavior in our history. You yell at one of my team and it's over. That do not pass go. It's over. Nobody deserves that. What are we doing?
Tom Hootman (46:07)
They were small. It's okay.
Renia (46:23)
Are we not at a place where we don't scream at people anymore? Right. But the, the thing that I am the probably the most proud of about our work is my first client is still a client. She pays less than anybody else because she's on that retroactive system. Right. But like that kind, that is part of what, because we do things the way that we do, people stick with us for a
long time. And the most common reason that people transition from us is because they've brought someone or someone or sometimes a group of people in-house to do what we do. That makes the whole conversation a lot different, right? But that is going back to the like knowing what the right fit is for you. That's why we work with small business because that's never going to happen.
at the corporate level. If you're doing corporate level work, you just have to know that there's always a bottom dollar or a person transition, no matter how good you are, away from that one going away, right? In small business, if you're producing results and working with good people, people are loyal.
Tom Hootman (47:30)
Which is hard to come by. Very hard to come by.
I've got one more topic I want to broach because it's important to both of us. And then I got to ask you about your playlist. We'll do it opposite and we'll end with the playlist this time. You and I chatted about something near and dear to your heart, which is also important to me and to us here at Mixtape. And you shared some statistics about women founding businesses and the success rate of those businesses. Will you recap that data again for me? Because I thought it was
Renia (47:38)
you
Tom Hootman (47:53)
fascinating.
Renia (47:53)
Yeah, so this is, we were talking a little bit about like mission, right? So we read a lot since, particularly since 2020, about the rate of acceleration of women starting businesses. And it looks like a really good thing, right? Almost half, something like 48 % of businesses started in the US right now are started by women. And we're like, oh, progress, that sounds about right.
But then you dig a little deeper in the statistics and find the one that pisses me off, which is of the businesses started by women, only 6 % of them will ever gross more than $250,000 a year, which means if you think about everything that comes out after gross, they're not making a living, much less employing anyone or anything like that.
And that number makes me so angry because I think about all of the access issues that create that, but also the things that we do as women that hold us back in that space. I want that changed. So we're really working on ways to help move that number right now. And so always want to say to particularly women who are in this space,
If you feel like you're the only one in the room, it is not an illusion. It usually is because you are the only one.
Tom Hootman (49:12)
It's It's true. So I'd like to unpack a bit the 48 to six. It's interesting to me. Why do you think that's the case? What do you think are the roadblocks or what do think are the hurdles that women in particular face to number one? Because to me, it's such a huge monumental step to start a business. You can think about it and want to do it for, in my case, over
probably 20 years, that was the hardest thing for me was to do it. Once I was pot committed to use a poker term, I was like, well, we got to do this now, might as well like run. I don't know what hurdle I might not have hit that maybe in the way of someone, woman who starts a business, like where is the disconnect? We're making such a huge decision, a courageous decision to use your word. And, but then to not.
to not see the growth that they deserve or to run into like some type of brambles and thickets that cap the growth of the org.
Renia (50:05)
Yeah, you want me to piss off the whole internet? I think there are. So there's the systemic things that are not controversial to most people. Female entrepreneurs have a lot harder time accessing credit, even with equivalent businesses. Meaning you and me, we both own marketing companies. Let's say we're at the same place for whatever reason.
Tom Hootman (50:08)
Yeah, let's do it.
Renia (50:30)
If I go to get a business loan and you go to get a business loan, just because you're a man and I'm a woman, you have a higher likelihood of success. That makes no sense. And I'm not going to unpack all the reasons why, but there's really good data on this, right? But then also there's this soft thing that I really think shows up of women don't tend to have the support structure relationships that men do.
that make entrepreneurship a little bit easier. So the way I say this that pisses off the internet is ⁓ men have wives. So, and I say that because there's a lot of things that women, if you have women around you, whether it's a wife or a girlfriend or a mom or a sister, they massage life, if you will, that when you are a woman starting a business, all that expectation is still on you.
You've got a mom and keep the household and like keep up with all the things and it's hit these expectations that are not easy to do with entrepreneurship. Like they're hard enough in a regular nine to five job. When you're doing something that in the beginning takes everything you have because that's what it takes in the beginning. I am not one of these like you can just go start your business and you know it takes everything you have.
Tom Hootman (51:44)
No.
Renia (51:48)
in the beginning. And if you don't have someone else to help make life work around, like it's really hard to get over that. Like I am tremendously privileged that my husband makes a lot of the life things work so that I can do a lot of the business things. But my experience with women that own companies is that is not typical. They're trying to do all of these things perfectly and also run a business and like
I don't s- that- that- that shit don't work. It just doesn't.
Tom Hootman (52:19)
Is it Craig? Was that your husband's name?
Shout out Craig again. ⁓ Craig is awesome. I think about it a lot in terms of there's a cultural bias that very much exists, where the expectation is on people are unconsciously sexist, right?
Renia (52:23)
Yeah, Craig is awesome.
Tom Hootman (52:39)
they assume that the childcare first responder is the mother, right? Or they assume, so when they call, they have two contact numbers, a school will call the mother first, just because of that bias that's baked in over millennia, right, that exists. I had a plumber come over once to clear a garbage disposal, because I fucked it completely up.
And I was a dipshit and threw a bunch of pasta down a garbage disposal, which you don't do. And he literally said to me, well, better have a conversation with the Mrs. about what she's putting down this garbage disposal. And I was like, holy fuck, man. Like, really? I'm the guy. I'm the idiot here. And it's just like that unconscious bias. You talk about banking. And this is lost on people because this is just before I was born.
Prior to 1974, women were not allowed to apply for a credit card independently without having a man co-sign to be on the account. That is after the Nixon presidency. Like that is recent history that we've come so far from. And I think there's there's, what pisses me off about it is that, that front end stat you mentioned. It's really easy to say 48%.
Let's stop reading further. We did it everybody high five, right? It's equal. Woohoo. When you get into the underlying difficulties that I absolutely agree with that I wouldn't be here and be able to without a supportive partner who's like new going into it. This is going to be really shitty. Like you're going to work your ass off for a year. Yes, but I'm going to be here at least. Right? So like there's a benefit there, I guess, but like without having someone there, there's no way I for people with kids, I don't know how they do it.
Honestly, I don't have kids. We don't have kids. And it's like, I don't know how we would do it with two rugrats running around. I can barely do it with two dogs, right? Like it's insanely hard. And I appreciate you bringing up the fact that those inherent biases that exist that are easy to overlook, coupled with the front end stat, the 6 % when you told me I jotted it down is shocking.
You don't have to, you don't have to, I know your work, you're thinking through how do you attack this? How do you declare war on this? How do you, how do you start to go after that?
Renia (54:50)
We are trying to create programs for women who have been in business for a little bit and haven't hit this number. Particularly community based businesses, so that's step one. And also I think we need to show. The people who have actually done it. So something that we have launching later this year is.
⁓ I've been very reticent to get back into the podcast, YouTube, whatever space, but now with this mission, I am doing profiles and stories on women who have broken that barrier. So I am going out and finding the 6%. And I think about it just in my world.
Half of my clients are women in that 6%. That's rarefied air when you think about how few of them there are. So we are looking like, anybody watching or consuming this podcast anyway, if you are a woman who has broken that barrier, we want to tell their stories. We want to show women who are actually doing it. So, and not companies that are putting a woman
on at like a 10 % owner or whatever, just so they can check a box, right? We are looking at 100 % female owned companies who have broken that barrier for at least three years. And we want to tell their stories.
Tom Hootman (56:10)
Yeah.
I love that. That's magnificent. Someone already comes to mind that I want to introduce you to for that exact reason. ⁓ And I know you do everything intentionally, but you mentioned at the front end, of the biases, one of the reasons why that number dwindles to six that we take for granted is that the network piece of like, even you look at like Kelley School of Business at Indiana, right? Like it's a male dominated field with a network.
Renia (56:17)
I love it.
Tom Hootman (56:37)
of men who've all gone to Kelley and like you've got this group of people that tend to mentor each other. And we seek out people who are like us predominantly. And what I particularly admire about what you're doing is like, you're creating that network for other women to have the place to learn and listen. And then also even reach out and say, Hey, I'm doing this too. And what you're the story you told resonates with me.
And I would love to get your advice. Or I would love to know how you approached this, right? That as long as you're providing avenues for people to go down when they're at those moments where they're like, how do I grow this? And I'm having such a hard time doing it. That we all have that I think we don't understand the inherent advantages that are baked into some people versus others. If that makes sense.
Renia (57:21)
Exactly.
Exactly. And I just give you a clear example because we were talking about credit being one of those barriers, right? Like, we're now starting to have systems with that because of trying to intentionally create networks. So like, First Women's Bank in Chicago, that's the mission they're trying to solve for, right? Is women having access to credit. I think this can shift.
but you're so right about the networks and also the understanding the value of the types of businesses women tend to start because they often don't make sense. I've heard horror stories, particularly from like one of the most successful female entrepreneurs I've ever known who makes haircare products for black women. Like she could not get the funding that she needed because no man.
could understand why someone would spend the money that she wanted to, was her price point on these products. And I'm like, you've never been in a women's beauty store if you don't think they will spend that price point. Like, do you want to come look in my cabinet and see how many thousands of dollars of BS is in my medicine cabinet?
Tom Hootman (58:19)
If you don't think they will sit at the press play, do one the flicking like happens.
It's
it's equal parts. I admire beyond admire that you're taking this on. I would expect nothing less from you, to be honest. You've shared some insanely stark statistics
And anything I mean, anything we can do to help I'm not gonna let you off the hook without the question I normally open with that we you and I in true fashion blew through
Renia (58:51)
You
Tom Hootman (58:51)
It's Mixtape Digital, right? Like there's a boombox behind me. Music is my thing. I worked in a Musicland for many years. So I'm stuck music, music, music. If your career or life could be boiled down to three songs, two or three songs on a playlist, what would they be and why?
Renia (59:04)
Yeah, I love this question and I am probably going to prove my best friend, right, who thinks I am a walking Hallmark card. So number one is always going to be Drive by Incubus. That's been my theme song since college. you got to be in charge of your own life, man. Like, and I have been really into The Great Divide.
which is Billy Strings and Luke Combs. I like this idea of building bridges, this idea of like, we've got to figure out a way to talk to each other. And ultimately, I think that's most of the work that we do is build a lot of bridges. And then ⁓ probably my fight song is Alley in the Jungle by The Hours, another old one, which is basically just a anthem for days that are hard.
Tom Hootman (59:48)
Again, a very organized, I'm surprised you probably don't have different color post-it notes on your wall with the three songs. I'm just giving you shit. Because like, so well thought out. And I appreciate it.
Renia (59:55)
You
Tom Hootman (59:57)
I appreciate you picking those songs that mean something to you,
I appreciate you finding something meaningful to tell us. It's been wonderful. Renia thank you for your time.
Renia (1:00:03)
It's so funny.
Tom Hootman (1:00:06)
It's been an absolute pleasure and I appreciate the hell out of you. Thank you.
Renia (1:00:09)
You too, thank you for this,